


Song of Home

by Nagaem_C



Series: The Sewing Box: Needles and Pins One-Shots [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Christmas Music, Gen, Loneliness, Mind Palace, Music, POV Sherlock Holmes, Post-Reichenbach, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-15
Updated: 2014-03-15
Packaged: 2018-01-15 17:07:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1312621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nagaem_C/pseuds/Nagaem_C
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This time it's not the Voice he hears, but an echo of another man that sounds nothing like the rough, harsh accent he's adopted here: nothing like the reedy twang, the melodious Francophone lilt, the guttural thud of the other voices he's channeled through his lying, clever throat in the past eighteen months. He barely recognises that voice as his own. That is fitting, for it truly is his no longer.</p><p> <b>(Takes place about nineteen months before Stitching Up the Tears; may stand alone)</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	Song of Home

**Author's Note:**

> In chapter 9 of A Thread To Hold, Sherlock performs a very special Christmas carol for the guests assembled at 221B:
> 
>      Sherlock turned to face John and opened his eyes in a single fluid motion. "I composed the arrangement two years ago today, in Moscow," he answered, directing his words and his serious silver gaze solely towards his friend as if no-one else were there.

  
**Song of Home**  
 _24 December 2012_

.

 

It is nearly nine o'clock, long past full dark, and the sky over western Moscow is clear for the first time in over a week.

Ilya—that is what they call him here, the very few he speaks to—has retreated from his day's efforts in the city to seek out a new shelter. He makes his way on foot now, stiff snow crunching beneath somewhat ill-fitting boots, between two rows of old buildings bordering on a small, disused train yard. It's taken him over an hour to walk this far; the subway station at which he'd chosen to disembark was calculated to mislead anyone following, and his path to the train yard has been carefully indirect. Now that he is in the yard, the nearly-full moon casts his crisp shadow on eerily pure white: a marked contrast to the muddied snow-slush of the streets he's left. Treading upon the unblemished snow is a risk that cannot be helped, even as it is reassuring to see no sign of life before him. He hopes that the misdirection of his circuitous route will be enough to keep his path from notice tonight.

The cold, still air pinches Ilya's cheeks as he walks. It is _always_ cold here, it seems. Objectively he knows this is untrue—he can reference all of the relevant climate information; he's done his research. It's simply the timing of the mission that has brought him here to Russia in the depths of winter, and he is too ruthlessly efficient to have considered waiting for a better convergence of target and weather. Ilya will not be here long enough to witness the short spring, or the mild summer; he will not see the melting of the snow cover. He will have moved on long before the change of season.

 _I will have moved on...or I will be dead._ The thought wanders through his mind, but it lacks weight. He lets it echo for a moment, tests its taste against the back of his tongue, breathes it out slowly in a soft cloud before his face.

He scans the dirty, crumbling concrete walls of the buildings as he walks, and settles his attention upon one situated almost three-quarters of the way down the row of empty facilities. It blends neatly with the others, an unremarkable two-storey warehouse adorned in irregular patches by old graffiti that seems itself neglected. The jumbled, layered Cyrillic characters are faded and chipped away, fragmentary memories of youthful rebellions long forgotten and passed over.

A rusted steel door at the shadowed side of his chosen refuge is hanging partially off its hinges, its age-bleached institutional paint peeling and flaking away in sharp, inscrutable patterns. It grinds out a dissonant squeal when Ilya pushes it aside. The startling sound echoes down the deserted alley for an excruciating second, and he looks nervously in all directions before squeezing his slender frame through the opening. The ugly, thick coat he wears begins to snag on the rough metal as he pushes past; he ducks and shifts his angular shoulders to shrug it free.

Ilya freezes just inside the entrance, pressing his back against the wall and taking shallow, silent breaths. It isn't as if the noise of his entry wouldn't already have roused any occupants, or disturbed any stray animal that might be within; all the same, he waits long minutes until his eyes adjust fully to the semidarkness before allowing himself to move freely.

Fuzzy squares of dim moonlight touch the open interior of the building in scattered spots; a continuous series of long rectangular windows sits high along the roofline, some broken and some merely dirty, and there are a few larger paned windows along the upper portion of the south-facing wall. The floor is littered with debris: broken bricks, shards of glass, odd sections of pipe and careless curls of stripped wire. He makes a mental note to procure a measure of the wire, later—a makeshift garrote might come in handy. Many areas of the warehouse floor hold unidentifiable hulking shadows, possibly shelving or machinery in a former life.

_Or maybe a former half-life?_

Ilya levels a disparaging frown at himself as he picks his way carefully across the floor. If he's come down to the level of making pathetic, _asinine_ jokes about nuclear power inside his own head, he's further gone than he'd suspected. He'll need to eat one of the hideous Russian protein bars tonight, and he'll likely have to barter for more with Agata soon; he reaches a gloved hand up over his shoulder, reflexively double-checking that his small backpack is present and accounted for.

 _And there's another bad sign,_ he thinks, dispirited; _I should have enough feeling in my shoulders to tell the pack is there..._

Swallowing a tired sigh, he approaches the south wall and looks upward to the mezzanine level. The gangway and its battered stairs look intact enough to support his weight, and the windows sport one or two broken panes that will be at about eye-level if he stands there—he will not need to smudge the dirty glass to peer outside. Ilya glances back over his shoulder, judging the distance to the door and the line of sight. Satisfied, he begins to climb at a cautious pace, testing each stair gingerly as he goes.

 

.

 

Ilya sits cross-legged, his backpack open before him. There is a low wall along the eastern half of the mezzanine floor—another beneficial barrier against being seen—and he braces his back into the corner of it, facing out toward the windows. He looks down at his lap, running a check over his meagre belongings: a rolled towel, one ratty and nondescript change of clothing, half a package of caffeine pills he's meted out carefully since Italy, three of the horrid protein bars, two knives, lockpicks, money and a few odds and ends. The identification he carries this week marks him out as one Neal Addison: another skin to put on and slough off when needed, but as yet he has gotten by without showing this name, here. Perhaps he can simply remain Ilya, and put off being Neal until the next place. He can't remember where the next place will be, right now, but he recalls there is a plan, and he thinks he may be almost halfway through it.

 _Who was I two weeks ago?_ he wonders vaguely, tucking the passport back into its place. The answer drifts slowly up from his memories, too slowly. _Jerry Grant...Berlin._ He gazes down at his hands in the half-light; now that he is no longer moving his thoughts grind haltingly against one another, slipping in formless fits and starts, until he finally remembers what he'd meant to do. The bar's wrapper slips between his clumsy, numb fingers as he sets to tearing it open; eventually he succeeds, and begins to eat in tiny, measured bites. The texture is gritty and it tastes awful, but he can practically feel the gears in his exhausted mind beginning to realign before very long.

 _"Not just transport; when will you learn?"_ scolds the Voice inside his head, more clearly than he has heard it in days. It sounds exasperated in a familiar way, and somehow also sad, which makes little sense to Ilya; he does not dwell on it.

He pulls out the rolled towel and tucks it into the corner behind his neck as a pillow, lifting his dirty, rough blond ponytail up and out of the way as he does so. He considers removing the hat he wears, as he had removed the thick gloves once seated, then decides against it. It feels warmer here, out of direct exposure to the sluggish wind, but Ilya knows the warmth is mostly illusory.

 

.

 

As he digests the food, his thoughts begin to come back into focus, finally; it's time to reassess the various preparations he's made today, and review the next steps of the plan. The self-audit—clinical, precise, practised—is performed each time he rests, and it's become an ingrained routine that centres him. Chapped lips move to rapidly shape words, and the litany of _places, names, targets, methods, means_ flows silently upon each inward and outward breath, wrapping him in the cold reassurance of his purpose and intent.

Tonight, when he comes to the end of his lists, Ilya finds he is staring upwards to one of the broken-out skylights at the roofline. The last item on the list, as always, is the date. Losing track is easy, he's found, now that his time zone changes so frequently; certain items in his plan remain somewhat time-sensitive. _December twenty-fourth,_ he repeats to himself, pressing his lips together and twisting them to one side as he looks up. _Christmas Eve._

The stars are bright pinpoints against the inky black above. There seem to be more of them framed inside that discrete rectangular space than could possibly be counted. He had not looked up as he'd walked exposed beneath them, earlier, but now Ilya finds it difficult to pull his eyes away.

_"Beautiful, isn't it?"_

This time it's not the Voice he hears, but an echo of another man that sounds nothing like the rough, harsh accent he's adopted here; nothing like the reedy twang, the melodious Francophone lilt, the guttural thud of the other voices he's channeled through his lying, clever throat in the past eighteen months. He barely recognises that voice as his own. That is fitting, for it truly is his no longer.

 

.

 

Blowing out a long, shaky breath, Ilya draws his knees up into his chest and wraps his arms around them. The trembling tightness in his gut has nothing to do with the food bar, he knows. It's been a full fifteen days, now, since he's sunk any further into himself than what was needed for his periodic self-audit; moreover, he feels safer here than he has in any of the alleyways or hovels in which he's recently hidden himself. This silent, darkened building may yet prove to furnish a false security, but he is desperate to believe in it, now.

 _Do I need it?_ he asks himself, and then: _Will it help?_

There is no reply from the Voice. He didn't expect one, but the fact that he's had to ask himself stands as answer enough. Glancing up once more at the starry sky, Ilya closes his eyes and lets the cold drift away as he falls slowly backwards into his mind...

 

.

 

Sherlock blinks and steps forward, tugging the hem of his suit jacket down reflexively. The front antechamber of the Mind Palace feels at once cavernous and claustrophobic, creaky with disuse and crowded around with jumbled, unsorted files.

"I should organise those," he thinks. "But not now. Boring."

A few more quick paces, his favourite black oxfords skimming pleasantly over the buff wood floor, and he's left the temporary mess of his self-neglect behind: these are the halls he sees only infrequently, most often utilised from the easy distance of the antechamber without actually looking inside. Now, though, he is present and aware, and _searching_ for something.

"I need..."

A pensive hum pulls itself out of his throat; Sherlock tentatively touches the warm gunmetal-coloured doorknob that leads to his John-space, but pulls his hand back. Turning, he crosses instead to the painted door marked with the familiar brass knocker—it has no numerals, here, for it has never needed them—and as he comes close to it, he hears muffled laughter and voices inside.

"Christmas," he realises, as he pushes the door open. He makes his way up the cozy, dim staircase, drawn by the sound of Mrs Hudson's high tittering laugh; he steps into the living room, letting his gaze find her first.

She is sitting in his own chair. The fairy lights along the mantel sparkle in her eyes as she speaks. _"Ooh, John, you mix a lovely Dark and Stormy. I haven't had one of these in ages! Reminds me of Florida, in the better days."_

 _"No trouble, Mrs Hudson. Now, mind you don't get through that too fast, it's a bit potent..."_ John is halfway into the kitchen, carrying an empty wineglass. Sherlock catches a glimpse of the back of his garish blue and red jumper as he exits.

 _"Pish tosh,"_ their landlady calls after him, smiling. _"I can handle rum, dearie, don't you worry about me."_

 _"Of course not, wouldn't dream of it! I'd just rather not have to carry you downstairs later."_ His answer is muffled: he's rummaging in the bottom of the fridge, now, likely for the beer he keeps there.

Mrs Hudson giggles girlishly around the edge of her glass, turning to the man standing casually before the fireplace. _"The good Detective Inspector here would help you. Wouldn't you, love? You look nice and strong."_

_"Call me Greg, please, ma'am. And yes—if it came to that, 'course I would!"_

_"Oh, you're such a dear, aren't you. Gregory, then,"_ she decides with a slightly tipsy nod.

Sherlock frowns slightly at the ridiculous name, then dismisses it from his thoughts. The frown deepens as a slender woman he doesn't recognise approaches Lestrade, passing a greeting card into his hand. _"Look at this,"_ she cackles, _"you'll love it. John says it came from some former clients—the letter's hilarious!"_

Lestrade reads it, chuckling; the woman pats at the mass of dark brown hair pinned atop her head with an air of over-practised elegance, turning to meet John as he returns from the kitchen. She accepts the refilled wineglass from him, and John puts his arm around her shoulders casually, taking a short pull from the beer bottle in his other hand.

They're a _horrible_ match. The woman's face is too thin, and she's obviously been enjoying sending John to fetch drinks and amuse her. Of course, John appears only too happy to do so; he's always so easily led to service, especially in the pursuit of sexual satisfaction. She looks at him in a way that Sherlock recognises as hawkish and proprietary. And John's face, as he looks to her, is glazed with equal parts desire and careless inattention.

"He likely barely remembers which girlfriend he's with this week," the detective thinks sourly. God knows, there'd been enough of them; it would take a Herculean effort to keep them all straight. Whoever this woman is, at least Sherlock can take comfort in the fact that she probably hadn't stuck around to interfere in any later memories.

_"Sherlock, dear, won't you play something for us all?"_

Startled out of his strange fixation, Sherlock turns to face Mrs Hudson once more, but she is looking directly through his chest; it's quite unsettling. Seconds later, he is unsettled even more by the image of his own body passing directly _through_ him, from the area of the sofa. This Sherlock is attired in a wine-red shirt beneath a different jacket, and retrieves his violin solemnly, moving to stand by the window.

As the memory of himself goes about tuning the instrument and prepares to play, Sherlock looks once more to the others; the woman is trying hard to keep her date's attention, while John has clearly shifted his focus to his flatmate.

But John does not look to _him;_ for all intents and purposes, the real Sherlock is completely invisible here. Sherlock clenches fists at his sides, frustrated. In a full memory setting such as this, he cannot make alterations, nor can he interact with anyone. "I don't know why I expected this to be comforting in the least," he thinks petulantly.

Grimacing, he abruptly throws up a hand—Lestrade halts mid-step on his way to the kitchen; Mrs Hudson freezes on a long swig of her cocktail; John's face stills in a strange expression of reluctant fascination. Sherlock might have appreciated the opportunity to study that expression in detail, were it not for the annoying woman's lips touching John's ear, frozen in some suggestive whisper. Turning away from the blatant display, Sherlock approaches his own image at the window, and gestures once more: the doppelganger vanishes, leaving the violin to drop into Sherlock's waiting hands.

The mental construct of his flat is empty, now, though the fairy lights still twinkle and reflect in the night-dark window. He scans the familiar furnishings with a sudden pang of loneliness, looking over the scattering of ridiculous holiday cards tucked above the tinsel on the mantelpiece—and noting in passing the small red-wrapped package there, recorded faithfully in his peripheral vision although his attention hadn't actually been drawn to it until over an hour later. Sherlock twists his lips at the thought of the less-than-pleasant events that would have played out here, had he let the scene continue. "No, no need to wait for Molly to arrive. Best to just leave it."

 

.

 

Sighing, Sherlock regards the bow, then tucks the instrument into place beneath his chin, rolling his shoulders and attempting to relax into correct posture. He begins by simply bowing a few sustained notes, hoping that the long tones will clear his mind here within his imagination, just as the exercise would in reality. Scattered thoughts peek through, at first, and he allows them to flit in and out, slowly winding down from the disappointment and frustration of his memory exercise.

One thought sticks with more weight than the others, until it becomes a distraction from his slow, meditative scales: "What time is it, now?"

He sends out a tendril of his consciousness, briefly, and receives the answer, along with the reassuring confirmation that all is still silent in Ilya's refuge. "Ten thirty," he muses. That makes it half six in London. He tries to imagine another Christmas Eve in 221B—Mrs Hudson fussing at everyone to eat, and giddily demanding entertainment; Lestrade, anxiously attempting not to spend the holiday contemplating his long-suffering marriage, and likely failing; and Molly would be there too, and maybe even Stamford, why not...all of them safe and happy together...with John bustling about in a ridiculous, soft jumper, laughing, happily playing the role of genial host to them all...

He suddenly realises that his scales have stopped, and in their place he has begun playing "Jingle Bells." A trite, inane tune, featuring infantile lyrics and an utterly simplistic melody—it won't do at all!

Sherlock screeches to a halt, bow jittering discordantly from the strings. He tips it toward the floor and hangs his head a moment, taking harsh, deep breaths that taste of bitter cold in his throat. He is too close to the edge now, he knows; it takes concerted effort to bring the warmth of the Baker Street room back to the forefront.

 

.

 

When he readies his violin once more, he again gives in to his apparent need for sentimental comfort—childish though it may be—but this time, Sherlock consciously chooses a carol that more adequately meets his standards. The melody of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" begins gentle and sweet; he finds himself slowing it from its usual pace, and accentuating the minor key...and as he reaches the end of the first verse, he feels a new urge stirring within him.

Sherlock has only composed music within the confines of the Mind Palace once or twice. Years past, before he'd perfected his strategy to get out of tedious university courses, he'd been trapped in a particularly boring three-week chemistry lab intensive, and had produced a passable series of contrapuntal fugues to pass the time. He usually enjoys the tactile, engaged process of scratching notes to paper, and of course the sensations his imagination provides to approximate the experience of playing are nowhere near as vital and satisfying as the real thing. Still, it is remarkable to watch sheet music materialise before him, the staves filling themselves in as if transcribed by an invisible hand.

After a tentative start, Sherlock shifts the theme smoothly into a new meter and begins to play in earnest, trusting the Mind Palace to keep up as he releases his conflicted emotions into the music. The style of this piece is far less formal than many of his usual compositions: no Baroque trills or flourishes clutter the clean lines of the melody, as he allows it to depart completely from the confines of the carol. There is a reaching, a pulling, a delicate tension—crescendo, diminuendo; it is a longing, hesitant dance he draws from his strings.

Eyes trained on the armchairs before the crackling fire, he paints a picture in sound of the lonely, snowbound expanse of the Russian train yard. The kitchen table beyond is cluttered with bottles and teacups, and a platter of Mrs Hudson's cherry cakes; Sherlock introduces an uneven rhythmic motif to echo the uncertainty and isolation of moving between unfamiliar cities under assumed identities. He gazes at the bullet-riddled smile scrawled on the wall over the sofa, remembering the appalled glare John had given him as he shot it. In a cascading series of short chromatic falls, he tries to express how preferable that companionable boredom would be to the faceless, fearful tedium of waiting and hiding. The notes appear on the pages before him as quickly as he fingers the strings, dark sepia ink sinking into crisp parchment that no-one will ever see save himself.

As the parabolic structure of his composition carries him forward, Sherlock allows himself freedom. He lets the haunting theme express the full depth of his melancholy and unease, the heartsick separation of his own self-image from his existence—but soon enough a hint of quiet expectation begins to suffuse the music, resolving the small dissonant tensions one by one. As he nears the close, the Christmas carol re-emerges softly, returning first in fragments and then coalescing in a plaintive, clear peal. _(Tidings of comfort and joy.)_ Sherlock brings his piece to a slow close on a perfect, double-stopped Picardy third, allowing the incongruous major harmony to warm the final sustained note with a peaceful assurance of hope.

When he is finished, he feels unmoored, raw. He lowers the violin with a trembling arm, and it disappears. The silence in his head seems deafening.

Unsteady, Sherlock opens his eyes—when had he closed them?—and raises his gaze past the fresh stack of neatly penned pages on his music stand. Beyond them, he glimpses a standing figure before the fire, turning transparent and fading completely from view within seconds: John.

John had been watching him play. John was already gone.

"Merry Christmas," whispers Sherlock to his empty flat.

 

.

 

There is a heavy, soothing silence in the cold warehouse; a light snow has begun to fall, tiny flakes catching moonlight as they float past the broken windows. It almost looks as if the stars are slowly crying.

Eventually, Ilya sleeps.

 

\-- _fin_ \--

 

**Author's Note:**

> Many heartfelt thanks to HarmonyLover, who was truly indispensable in helping me find the confidence to complete this piece! It's so wonderful to work with you. :)


End file.
